Warranty
by RCB
Summary: Gen, Impala POV set in early season two. A comment fic response to a hurt/comfort prompt. Most specifically: “The car, she is hurt. The car, she needs comfort.”


A/N: My first comment fic written for a lovely prompt over at livejournal's spn_hurtcomfort comm's hurt/comfort-meme. Most specifically: "The car, she is hurt. The car, she needs comfort." Self beta'd.

Warranty

Dean's got one hand on her, fingers splayed wide across the smooth, sun warmed black quarter panel, and one rubbing his tired face while Bobby tells him that the wheel bearings came in but he still can't find the radiator. Bobby's voice is gruff as he explains, with the familiar undertones of concern and caring.

When Dean finally pulls his hand away from his face, it's smudged black in interesting places. Light streaks across the bridge of his nose, heavy smear across his stubbled cheek, long stripes in the shape of his fingers that fade as they travel down his throat.

She wonders if it's weird to think that he looks beautiful with her life blood all over him, but then quickly decides that it's no weirder than anything else they've ever been through together.

The important thing is that all through Bobby's unsettling prognosis, Dean never lifted his hand from her.

Dean murmurs something about not giving up and she believes him. She's slipping away again and the last thing that she's aware of is Dean's calloused palm on her. She doesn't know if it's there to comfort her, or if he's just trying to keep himself grounded.

She's fine with either.

_________________________________________________________________

When she comes to again, Dean turning her key and she tries to respond. She really, really _tries_ but the best she can muster is a clicking sound in place of the usual rumble. He's always listened to her, and hopefully he'll hear what she's trying to tell him.

He tries three times before taking the key out and leaning back in the seat. She feels that loss keenly.

"Bobby says we just need to replace your engine. He says it'll be easier." Dean's voice is unnaturally loud in the dark silence. She can feel heat emanating off of him in waves right through his t shirt, and knows that he's sunburned even worse than yesterday. On one hand she feels guilty; it's her fault that he's in pain. But on the other, she's glad that he hasn't left her, hasn't given up.

Ever since the accident, she's been going to a dark place. She doesn't know where or what the place is, but Dean's not there. Nothing is. She hates it there.

Every times she comes back to here, a place with light even in the night, Dean's been here. He doesn't leave her alone, and sometimes even Bobby's here. Sam, too, though not often. She knows that Sam doesn't know what to do, not for her or Dean. Earlier, in between being here in the light, and away in the dark, she heard Sam talking.

John is dead.

She's always been proud to be what she is. She's strong and hard on the outside, and she's kept her family safe inside of her steel embrace for almost thirty years. She's not impenetrable, as the tractor trailer proved, but she knows that her strong frame minimized the impact to all three passengers.

On the inside, she's soft and comforting. Her family spent as many nights sleeping in her as they have in proper beds. She watched Sam Winchester literally grow in his sleep, measured it off half inch by half inch until he became the man that he is today. Watched Dean's dismay as Sam shot past him, and chuckled silently at him.

So she's proud that she's able to take care of her family. If she were anything else, she wouldn't be able to do that.

But John Winchester is dead, and for the first time in her life she wishes she was human.

She wants to cry. To weep and wail. Rage at everyone and everything, including Heaven. Anything that is listening.

As she feels lucidity failing again, she hears Dean whispering that a new engine isn't the same, and not to worry: he's putting her back exactly the way she was.

"I'll figure something out."

She thinks maybe that she's never loved him more.

_________________________________________________________________

She can't come all the way back. It's daytime and the sun is high in the sky but everything it muted, toneless and gray. She's halfway again, and the voice she hears sounds like it's a hundred miles away.

"He always was a stubborn mule, just like his old man. For his sake, I hope yer as stubborn as he is." Bobby's voice is both gruff and kind, and she's vaguely aware that he just patted her rear quarter panel.

She is.

_________________________________________________________________

She knows that she's been gone for a long time. The stars position in the sky says that she's been in the dark place for almost a month.

Dean's in her backseat, laying on his back and staring at her ceiling.

She wonders what she's missed. She's got new injuries, and she aches all over. The back window is broken out, a huge gaping wound that lets the night air inside.

But her aching doesn't seem to compare to Dean's. She tries to forget about her own pain, and wills herself to be as comfortable as possible. She lets his stiff, tense muscles sink into her, uses the last of her energy to make the springs give just a little more for his weight in all the right places.

He gives a sigh, and his eyes close.

She feels a small spot of wetness, followed by another and another. She doesn't begrudge Dean his tears, and he sheds enough for the both of them. She's always lived vicariously through him, (and before him, John), so this time was no exception. She fights the dark place as long as she can, and when his chest stops the tortured hitching, and his breathing finally evens out, she finally stops fighting it and slips away.

_________________________________________________________________

When she comes back next, Dean isn't there.

Sam is.

She's wet all over, and she tries to comprehend what is happening to her. It takes a few minutes before it registers.

She's being scrubbed clean.

The front upholstery has already been done, and Sam is working on the back. He's pushing the stiff brush into her so hard that she'd wince if she could.

There is a thunderstorm, but Sam is safe from the tempest; her back window has been replaced while she was gone. He's not safe from getting wet, though. His jeans are wet from kneeling and he's too sloppy with the bucket of soapy water; his shirt has dark spots in various places.

He's scrubbing Dean's blood away, and she kind of wants to tell him to stop. John's is already gone, and that was all she had left of him.

Suddenly, he throws the brush against her newly replaced back window and the storm reprimands him for her. Thunder crashes so loud that it feels as if the earth under her tires is shaking.

He's breathing hard, and he has beads of sweat running down his face. Wow, he really needs a haircut, too.

She doesn't know how cramped his legs must be, squeezed inside of her like that and for who knew how long. But she knows they must be; she waits for him to leave so he can stretch them out, or give up and go back to the house. He looks exhausted, and not just physically.

Just as suddenly as he'd thrown the brush, he grabs it back up. He plunges his instrument of torture into the bucket and then back out quickly, splashing water all over her. He sets to work again; his face more determined that she'd ever seen him.

"This I know how to do. I can at least do this." His voice is high and desperate, and it reminds her of when he was sprouting up, the way it would crack with puberty.

She can't remember the last time her interior was cleaned so thoroughly, definitely not since before Sam went to Stanford. After Sam left, Dean would just toss out the garbage and declare her cleaned, with random, infrequent vacuums.

After a few minutes, it actually feels kind of good, now that she's used to the long forgotten sensation. There's a rhythm to it that is soothing all in itself, and she momentarily forgets her fears that while Dean wouldn't give up on her, it might not be his choice in the end.

She relies on parts, and the bottom line is that they don't make cars like her anymore. She can't remember the last time she saw one of her brother or sisters on the open road instead of a junk yard. Donors, she's seen plenty of those, and had been the lucky recipient countless times.

But she really, really didn't want to be one herself. Sam and Dean had work to do, that meant work for her, too. Her biggest fear was being left behind and lost among the rusted wrecks; only visited when someone needed something that only she could provide.

Alone forever and ever, until all her salvageable parts were gone and just a skeleton remained; then she'd be marked for the crusher.

For some reason, Sam cleaning her interior says that he isn't about to let that happen to her any more than Dean would. She feels like Sam has just joined the team on her side, and between that thought and Sam's extreme attention to detail to the very fibers of her being, she's being lulled to the dark place once more.

But this time, she isn't scared about going. She isn't worried that she might not come back.

_________________________________________________________________

The sun is shining, and the sky is blue. The light gleams off the junk cars around her, and she feels a touch of survivor's guilt as the rusted shells watch on. On this day, even they look shiny; the light plays on unpolished side mirrors and dances from there to the rare bits of metal not yet touched by oxidation.

None of that is as bright as the smiles her team gives as she rumbles and purrs. She silently encourages Dean to press on the gas again and he does. She sings her loudest and lets them all know.

She's back for good.

"Whaddaya say? Ready to get back on the road?" Dean asks Sam, coming out of her halfway, but leaving one strong hand on her steering wheel. Sam's holds their duffels up in the air in answer.

"All right then!" Dean sounds as excited as he did the first day that he drove her. Truth is, she's excited, too. She can't wait to get going, leave this graveyard behind in a spray of gravel and a cloud of dust.

Bobby whispers his good bye and knocks on her twice, the sound of his knuckles against her metal not loud enough to be heard over her pleased and purring heart. "Take care of 'em."

She answers, but Bobby can't hear it. It's okay; she's used to that. Even Dean can't understand everything she says. He understands the important stuff, and that's good enough for her. Maybe someday he'll figure out that when her doors creak she's welcoming them home, and he'll stop trying to shush her with WD-40.

At the first stoplight that they come to, Dean runs his hand around her steering wheel just as another Impala pulls up next to them. A 2004 model, she has a V6 and gets twenty miles to the gallon, the new car boasts to her as they wait for the green light. The "ancient gas hog" isn't spoken, but the taunt is implied.

Dean's Impala doesn't dignify that with a response. The newer Impala takes her silence as permission to continue on. Some guy named Phil just gave her a thirty minute oil change, and she crows that she's still under **warranty**.

Dean turns his head towards Sam and rolls his eyes for the both of them. "I still can't believe how they pussified the Impala," he bitches, speaking for her as well. Dean revs her up, and she growls menacingly at the juvenile to her left; the one who thinks a quicky thirty minute oil change given by some stranger named _Phil_ is love.

The kid can keep _Phil_; she's got the best warranty program in the world. It's not written down on some paper, filed away where the owner can't even remember where he put it. _Her_ warranty contract is written in blood, sweat and tears. In _her_ contract there is no such thing as _totaled_. That word doesn't exist in the Winchesters vocabulary.

The younger Impala's driver inserts a CD into the dash.

Classical music.

Dean snorts loudly and with the windows down, the other driver hears him. He makes a pissy, girly noise and turns it up louder.

_"Did I mention that I'm supercharged?"_ The cockiness from before is now strangely absent from her tone. The elder Impala still says nothing; the sound of her engine speaks for itself, and as if on cue, Dean revs her again. Little Miss "Great Gas Mileage" starts to say something else, but Dean cranks up 'Back in Black' full blast, and when the light turns green, Dean's Impala lets her taillights do the talking.

_Try and keep up, __**sweetheart.**_

_________________________________________________________________

Fin

A/N: Hmmm...I tried to provide direct links to the prompt post and the comm's meme for those interested in reading some more hurt/comfort fic but it's getting stripped out for some reason. Someday, perhaps I will figure out how to work this website. Until then, it is spn_hurtcomfort livejournal.


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